Sunday, November 1, 2009

Things got a little crazy around here the past five or six weeks. I got just about everything harvested from the garden and orchard. I'm lucky to have a cellar, that we cool down by opening the door and vent whenever the night weather is cool but not freezing. The apples, pears, and last of the grapes hold down there until I can get around to canning, dehydrating, or otherwise processing them. I'm used to dealing with that - that's a normal part of the annual rhythms around this house.

But then I also ended up with lots of family goings-on too - subject for another post (or three). Suffice it to say that I ended up driving out-of-state for two long weekends, my mom stayed here for a week (she's an easy keeper - it's nice when she comes to visit), and sweet husband was on vacation two separate weeks - all further disrupting my usual household routine.

Add to that, too many, too close together Soroptimist fundraisers - the Rummage Sale, our big golf tournament, and then Nevada Day selling sleeve garters. Nevada is one of the few states that still celebrates its admission as a state. Called the Battle Born state, President Lincoln signed it into Union statehood on October 31, 1864, towards the end of the Civil War between the states.

When I first moved here, Halloween trick-or-treating here in the capital always took place on October 30th, so the kids wouldn't be out in the evening after adults had been out partying all day on the 31st, no matter what day of the week it fell on. In 1997, to make the celebration and big parade easier on rural towns sending high school marching bands to the parade, and state employees in general, Nevada Day observance was officially changed into a weekend event, "the last Friday in October", with the big parade and all attendant festivities on Saturday. The kids could trick-or-treat on Halloween once again. This year, however, it just happened Halloween was on that Saturday so kids here, by official proclamation, were out on the 30th once again.

I love an excuse to play dress-up sometimes too. Starting with a blouse, skirt, and tights I already had, a few safety and bobby pins, a couple of feathers and a few silk flowers, I made a saloon girl costume to wear selling this year's sleeve garters. I had a great time - walking both sides of the street before and during the parade and through the downtown street parties afterwards, and got to see lots of old friends. Now, finally, November is here and I'm looking forward to some "me" time.

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Welcome to Firesign Farm!

writing about sustainability and simple living, high-desert gardening trials and tribulations, canning recipes and home cooking, sewing and other thrifty arts (occasionally, a personal fascination gets thrown into the mix, too).

Sadge (rhymes with badge, short for Sagittarius) and sweet husband Aries live on their semi-rural acre, watching as urban sprawl creeps ever closer. Can wood heat, gardens, clotheslines, and chickens co-exist with strip malls and high-density housing next door?

Where is Firesign Farm?High-desert northern Nevada, near Carson City, the state capital: just 30 minutes drive from Lake Tahoe and the California state line to the west, Reno to the north, and Virginia City and the Comstock Lode to the east.

Notable Quote

Nay, the ordinary things in Nature would be greater miracles than the extraordinary, which we admire most, if they were done but once.~John Donne

After I read the Little House on the Prairie books, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a pioneer - living off the land, in a cozy little home where my husband and I made everything in it. That dream never died. I did what I could, when I could. And then I met Aries – a fellow pioneer spirit. He started with a tiny house (all the plumbing on one wall of the kitchen – from the sink you’d walk through the shower stall to get to the toilet). He built a garage and added on a bedroom and bathroom. After we were married, we did all the work to turn it into a cozy home – wallpapering, sewing, building furniture, everything from laying floor tiles to texturing the ceiling. This isn't really a farm - it’s an urban homestead, on a little over an acre (half of that still just sand and sagebrush). But over the years we’ve raised horses, a goat, a pig, rabbits, ducks, geese, bees, chickens and guinea fowl (only the latter two here now). I dug up the horse corral with a pitchfork to put in a garden; we used our wedding present money to buy fruit trees. Through canning, dehydrating and cellaring, I rarely buy produce from the store. I'd say my childhood dream came true.